her.
Again met her eyes. “Please. Be careful.”
She blinked. “Yes, of course.” Her heart was thumping unusually quickly. She could still feel the pressure of his fingers around hers. Drawing in a much-needed breath, she inclined her head and stepped down to the dusty ground. “Good evening, Major.”
“Good evening, Miss Ensworth.”
Gareth stood on the steps and watched Emily Ensworth walk away across the sunburned ground toward the massive fort gates. With her porcelain complexion, rose-tinted and pure, her delicate features and soft brown hair, she looked so quintessentially English, so much the epitomization of lovely English maids he’d carried with him through all his years of service.
That had to be the reason he felt as if he’d just met his future.
But it couldn’t be her, couldn’t be now.
Now, duty called.
Duty, and the memory of James MacFarlane.
Turning, he climbed the steps and went back inside.
Emily frowned at the Indian houseboy standing in the patch of sunlight slanting across the silk rug in her aunt’s parlor. “He’s leaving?”
The boy, Chandra, nodded. “Yes, miss. It is said he and his other friends have all resigned their commissions because they are so cast down by the death of their friend the captain.”
She resisted the urge to drop her head in her hands and tug at her braids. What the devil was Hamilton about? How could he be her “one” if he was so cowardly as to run home to England? What about honor and avenging a friend-a comrade and fellow officer killed in the most ghastly and gruesome manner?
A vision of the four men as they’d stood around the table in the officers’ bar swam across her mind. Her frown deepened. “All of them-all four-have resigned?”
When Chandra nodded, she specified, “And they’re all heading back to England?”
“That’s what everyone says. I have spoken with some who know their servants-they are all excited about seeing England.”
Emily sat back in the chair behind her aunt’s desk, thought again of those four men, of all she’d sensed of them, remembered the packet she’d placed in Delborough’s hands, and inwardly shook her head. Any one of those four turning tail was hard enough to swallow, but all four of them? She wouldn’t lose faith in Hamilton just yet.
They were up to something.
She wondered what.
She was due to board ship on the eighteenth of the month, sailing via the Cape to Southampton. She needed to learn more about Hamilton, a lot more, before she left. Once she was convinced he was not as cowardly as his present actions painted him, as he was going home, she could-somehow would-arrange to meet him again there.
But first…
She refocused on Chandra. “I want you to concentrate on Major Hamilton. See what you can learn of his plans-not just from his household but from the barracks and anywhere else he goes. But whatever you do, don’t get caught.”
Chandra grinned, his big smile startlingly white in his mahogany face. “You can count on Chandra, miss.”
She smiled. “Yes, I know I can.” She’d caught him gaming, which was forbidden for those on the governor’s payroll, but on learning his need for rupees to pay for medicine for his mother, had arranged for him to have money advanced from his pay, and for his mother, who also worked in the governor’s mansion, to receive better care. Ever since, Chandra had been her willing slave. And as he was quick, observant, and all but invisible in Bombay’s busy streets, he’d proved extremely useful in following Hamilton and the other three.
“One thing-Hamilton has no other Anglo friends, just those three officers?”
“Yes, miss. They all came from Calcutta some months ago, and have kept to themselves.”
Which would explain why she’d learned nothing of Hamilton through the Bombay social grapevine. She nodded to Chandra. “Very well. Let me know what you learn.”
“He’s
“This morning, miss. He took the sloop to Aden.”
“He and his servants?”
“So I heard tell, miss-they were already gone when I got there.”
Mind racing, she asked, “The other three-have they gone, too?”
“I have only had the chance to check on the colonel, miss. Apparently he left on the company ship this morning. Everyone was surprised. No one knew they were leaving so soon.”
The company ship was a mammoth East Indiaman which went via the Cape to Southampton. She was due to board a sister ship in a few days.
“See what you can learn about the other two-the other major and the captain.” If all four had precipitously departed Bombay…
Chandra bowed and left.
Emily felt a headache coming on.
Gareth Hamilton-he who might be her “one”-had left Bombay via the diplomatic route. Why?
Regardless of his motives, his sudden departure left her with a very big unanswered question-and an even bigger decision to make. Was he her “one,” or not? She needed more time with him to tell. If she wanted to get that time, following him might-just-be possible. If she acted now.
Should she follow him, or let him go?
